living the dream

Category Archives: craft projects

Lately I’ve seen a few people talking about what they are doing with their instagram photos. I thought it would be fun to find a cool way to display them, but hadn’t gotten around to anything. One day I was walking down my hallway and saw my printers tray and realized I could easily update it with some of my instagrams! It had actually been a while since I had updated it. I made some mosaics of 6 photos in 1 and ordered them as 4×6 prints, giving me 2×2 photos. I cut those apart and then took half an hour and updated my tray. I didn’t replace all the photos. I left some of the old ones in. Trevor already told me he didn’t want me to fill it with photos of Serena because he loves seeing all the photos of our friends and family in there. I actually originally saw this idea on Ali Edwards’s blog and hers was filled with photos of her kids! Ha! Hopefully as I take more instagram photos and get some more of friends and family I can print more and change out some more photos. I like it so far though!

A year ago I showed you a couple of yarn wreaths I had made to hang on our doors. I decided to make one for my mom for Mother’s Day this year! To get some ideas I looked around on Pinterest. Have you been to pinterest yet? If not, why not? It’s fabulous! Anyway, I found some inspiration that led me to this. I made my very own version of one of the wreaths, and this is how it turned out.

And here is Mom with it on Mother’s Day, as posted on Facebook:

Making this one made me want to make some more! It’s sort of addicting. Making the felt flowers is pretty fun. The hardest part is guessing on the size of what you cut because it’s hard to tell how big the flower will turn out! Here’s a tutorial I would like to try out next time.

The second project I’ve been wanting to complete for a while and finished last weekend is a slide lamp! I originally saw this idea on She’s Crafty, a TV show I didn’t know existed until we canceled cable over a year ago. It looked like a fabulous idea! At one point I mentioned to Mom that I had hoped to make one. Several months ago she gave me a small bag of old slides that she didn’t want to keep. Most of them were of a parade and of Mom and her brothers and other family opening Christmas presents when they were kids. I knew they would be fun to use, but I didn’t have enough yet. Well, when we were at my parents’ for Easter Mom handed me a whole shoebox full of slides that were her great aunt Linda’s, (so my great great aunt). All of these slides were taken on trips she took, some in California and the southwestern states, and many on her travels in Europe. They appear to have been taken in the 60’s, and a small percentage of them have people in them. Once I had this box of slides I knew I could make my very own slide lampshade!

On Friday my friend Jen and I went thrift shopping and she helped me find an old lampshade I could tear apart to use as my base. It was $1.40 at a small thrift shop near her house. Not long after that we found a lamp at the Salvation Army for $5.99. At a craft store I purchased parchment paper to attach to the back of the slides, and 225 jump rings that I would be using to attach the slides (with a glue stick). I was really excited to make it, so late that night I started attaching the parchment paper to the slides while we watched TV. On Saturday I completed the project. It did take quite a bit of time to put this together, but I’m really happy with the results.

I have the lamp on an end table in our living room, which is the perfect spot.

I don’t know the stories behind any of these pictures, but it is fun to imagine. The strangest slides I found where a pair- one of an ambulance, and one of a woman on a stretcher going into the ambulance!

I have been seeing lots of similar wall art, and had discussed it with my cousin Jen. She got me started on the project by sending me three little works of art for my birthday that she had made for me.

How cute are they? After she sent me those, I couldn’t wait to get them on the wall. I found some embroidery hoops at a thrift store, and then the other day I decided I wanted to get everything else. My friend Jen went to some thrift stores and crafts stores with me to get everything else I needed, and Friday night I made all of my hoops while Trevor and I watched the final season of Friday Night Lights on DVD.

I cross-stitched this one:

The rest I just put fabric in. Trevor helped me hang them all up on the wall in our front room. So this is what you see when you walk in our front door now: